


Worlds Collide

by xantissa



Series: Carnival of Rust [21]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blood and Gore, Explicit Sex, Graphic Description of Injuries, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:23:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All things must come to an end, and so does the status quo between Jim and Khan. It starts with only the Captain and the Augment being called out to a far off base on some ridiculous excuse. Navigating political currents, trying to stay true to himself, Jim will have to once and for all choose his path. Will he be able to do that when his very survival will depend solely on Khan?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Wow that summary turned out good LOL It sounds like a movie trailer or something equally ridiculous.  
> Also another warning: I made some changes after the story was betaed so... beware, there be mistakes. Probably:)

Prologue

“Six weeks?!” Bones exclaimed as Jim read the orders from his data pad. “Are they crazy?”

Jim sighed with irritation and read the most irritating parts of the orders aloud. Again. Just to make sure he understood them right.

“Mr. Khan Singh and I are supposed to avail ourselves for standard medical procedures to supposedly evaluate our fitness for duty. If I understand it right we are supposed to prove ourselves capable of working as a team. Also Mr. Singh is supposed to undergo standard health evaluation, psychological evaluation, ability tests and a whole lot of pseudo medical mumbo-jumbo that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!” Jim complained again, losing his temper a bit. In contrast Khan, sitting on the opposite side of the table, looked almost smug. “And look at the coordinates!” Kirk threw the data pad on the table in frustration, where the hell it even is?”

“I agree its bullshit.” Bones said pointing at the data pad that Spock was now reading quietly. “I am your Chief Medical Officer and all questions about your health or this crew health should be directed to me. There’s something fishy about it.”

“Spock?” Jim asked his Second-In-Command for opinion.

“Those coordinates are very... far.” Spock agreed with a faint crease between the eyes, obviously still trying to place the exact location. “However I agree with Mr. McCoy here. Those orders and the way they are phrased do seem highly suspicious.”

“Yeah...” Jim groaned, really hoping for a different answer. “It looks too much like divide and conquer for my peace of mind.”

“Do you think they know about our plans considering Mr. Singh’s crew?” Spock asked calmly, obviously trying to keep the tensions in the room to a minimum by being polite to the Augment.

Jim opened his mouth to disagree but hesitated.

“I’m not sure. We only saved two, for Katya we left a fake. No one will know something isn’t right until they actually open the capsule. As for Turin... we made it look like a pirate attack, we also destroyed the capsule. It’s hard to say if they started suspecting something yet.”

“You managed to get me out of that prison by dangling a pretty bait if front of their noses, didn’t you?” Khan’s low, rumbling voice rolled over the room, silencing everyone. “Now those that know about me probably want to see just how well you control me. Just to see if you can deliver what you promised.”

Bones made an impatient sound and asked: “How many Admirals actually know about this deal anyway?”

Jim made a considering sound.

“About the crew? None. About me getting Khan out of prison? Five.”

Spoke looked up from the orders again. “Five out of seventeen, it makes it 29,41 percent. That is a fairly large number, especially in situation where secrecy is attempted.”

“Don’t forget we don’t know how many of them knew Marcus’ plans.” Khan added, a veritable ray of sunshine.

Jim groaned and resisted the urge to bang his head on the conference table.

“Arguing is useless. It’s a direct order and I have no choice but to comply.” Jim pulled the data pad back to himself. ‘Mr. Spock, you are in charge. Bones? You are his SIC. Khan and I are leaving tomorrow.”

“I don’t like it.” Said Bones even as he watched Jim enter his commands into the system. “Something bad is going to happen.”

The doctor had no idea how right he was.


	2. Chapter 1

James T. Kirk shifted uneasily in place, probably for the first time in his life he truly appreciated the invention of parade rest position. He clenched his hands behind his back and made sure to look straight ahead, ignoring the observation window just inches from his face. He was painfully aware of the unsubtle looks directed at him as much as they were at Khan being tested in the area below the observation deck.

 

They were both forced to come to this backwater medical base, just the two of them, under the guise of Khan requiring a physical evaluation if he was to be incorporated into the crew. When Bones saw that command, he snorted. The reports submitted on Khan’s condition and enhancements made it clear as day that the Augmented human couldn’t carry any diseases or viruses. His immune system was so aggressive it destroyed even the neutral organisms that could be found in human body, ones that did no harm but served no purpose either.

 

It was already the third day Khan spend being prodded and pushed to do tedious physical exercises and psych tests. Jim admired that man’s dedication to his goal. After what he suffered at Admiral Marcus’ hands, being essentially a lab rat again must have been terrifying yet Khan remained calm, perfectly polite and obedient.

 

Actually it was that obedience that scared Jim shitless, because he knew damn well Khan was going to make him pay for this whole farce. After all there was a whole bunch of people who thought they had Khan under control until he proved them that they really, really didn’t.

 

It was Jim who had problems controlling his emotions, his anger simmering just below his skin. He knew damn well it wasn’t Khan’s condition that was being evaluated but Jim’s control of Khan. They had very little contact with each other for the last few days and between that and the constant stress of being covertly watched and judged, Jim’s control was fraying fast.

 

The constant observation also meant that there was no chance for him to get Khan alone and touch him. The only contact they had was the day before, when during a fairly crowded turbolift ride Khan staged some frankly hilarious tripping and shoving chain that ended with Jim smashed between Khan and the wall in an undignified position and the Augment graciously helping him to right himself. The augment managed to slip his fingers under Jim’s sleeve and press the bare flesh to Jim’s skin. It was brief, seconds only but it was all Jim had and it had to be enough.

 

“Captain, would you like some refreshments?”

 

Jim took his eyes off Khan running full tilt on a treadmill on the level below and looked at the flustered administrative worker. The base was a medical research facility located at the ass end of nowhere. Now that there were five Admirals and more than one Captain visiting at the same time, the staff was obviously lost. They didn’t know the real reason for this odd convention but were smart enough to sense the undercurrents. One would have to be blind to not notice that both Khan and Jim were kept at a distance and watched very, very carefully.

 

“No thank you. I’m okay.” Jim refused politely, his paranoia acting up and making it hard to eat anything delivered to him by a third person.

 

It was a further fifteen minutes of watching the Augment sprint full tilt as easily as if he could do it for days on end before he was approached again. This time it was Admiral Ronald Frey, one of the youngest andleast liked one. He had some fairly liberal views and was considered a rather odd duck among the brass, but he was also rumored to have dirt on everybody. That would explain why he washere, when Kirk was sure that man knew nothing of the whole “saving Khan and himself along the way” plot.

 

“Remarkably patient man, isn’t he?” Mused the dark skinned man in his forties. “I would have snapped sometime during the first day.”

 

“Um...” Jim floundered for words, trying to find and answer that wasn’t ‘no shit’ but having problems. “Yes, sir.” Eventually he settled on the old routine.

 

Admiral Frey’s dark eyes watched the Augment for a few moments longer before turning to Jim.

 

“I don’t believe we have been formally introduced before. Admiral Ronald Frey, I have heard so much about you Captain James Tiberius Kirk.” There was an odd, intense inflection on Jim’s name and it made the blond even more uncomfortable. The tall, skinny man had average features overall but there was something in his eyes, a spark of intelligence and mischievousness that made Jim uneasy. That thread of amusement reminded him too much of... Khan actually.

 

“Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

 

The dark man smiled at Jim again.

 

“I’m sure.” Frey turned towards the observation window and took a sip from his glass of water. “Did you know his psych tests came back fascinating? It wasn’t the staggering intellect or the unrivalled ability to adapt that caught my interest though.”

 

“What was it then, Sir?” Jim asked politely, bewildered by this conversation and all the things he was sure he was missing during it.

 

“His empathy.” Frey answered obviously pleased with Jim’s look of shock.

 

“Empathy...” Jim repeated dumbly. He thought of the cold, often cruel and definitely snarky man, his way of following his goals at any price and could not see empathy in him at all.

 

“Yes. It’s off the charts you know. If he was born in our times I could suspect him of being a Betazoid halfbreed. He recognizes emotions in other people with a frightening accuracy and speed. And then proceeds to use that knowledge for his own gains. He’s excellent at manipulating people using their own emotions against them. Did you know that he has at least two senior research scientist already halfway in love with him? If he had stayed here for a few weeks longer he could probably have staged a revolt just by using his charisma alone.”

 

“I am sure you are exaggerating, sir.” Jim answered carefully, taken aback by the odd tone of voice of the Admiral.

 

Frey snorted gently, still watching Khan below.

 

“I wonder who you are lying to right now. Me or yourself?”

 

Jim flushed but said nothing.

 

“Anyway I think it’s time for us to conclude our business.” The admiral took another sip from his drink, never once looking at Jim. “Just so we are clear, I consider this debt yours James Tiberius Kirk and you would do good not to skirt on payment.”

 

With that cryptic message the Admiral turned away from the glass.

 

“Let’s see how well you _really_ control that man.”

 

As the admiral brushed past,  Jim felt a tug on his pocket. Bewildered and strangely alarmed by the entire odd interaction, it took considerable effort to pretend nothing happened and wait for a suitable moment to excuse himself to the bathroom.

 

Once he entered the stall and made sure there were no cameras anywhere near, he put his hand in his pocket and wasn’t surprised to feel something inside. Once he pulled it out it turned out to be small piece of paper, an archaic choice of delivering a message these days. At first Jim frowned at the folded paper but then he realized that it wasn’t such an odd way after all. As carefully as Jim was being observed he could bet his ass that nobody expected him to get a _handwritten_ _message_. Should he get any kind of electronic device or a data transfer, it would be found out in seconds. This though... this was so ridiculous it went right over any surveillance that might be on him. It seemed that whatever the rumors about Admiral Frey were, they didn’t do him justice.

 

As he unfolded the paper he saw that there were only numbers there, separated into pairs, four of them in every row.

 

Coordinates.

 

Jim stared at the paper blindly for a very long moment, a slow realization creeping in.

 

Ten coordinates.

 

_“Let’s see how well you really control that man.”_

 

Ten pods or maybe even more if there were more than one at any location.

 

The paper burned in his hand, the knowledge of just what that Admiral was suggesting sitting heavily in Jim’s stomach.

 

With that information stored on a painfully fragile carrier it would be easy for Jim to be the only one knowing those locations, he could have a trump card, a way to establish some true control over Khan, a definite way to direct the Augment’s actions.

 

If he chose to go that road.

 

_If_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> done 06-09-2013


	3. Chapter 2

Khan came back to consciousness with a gasp. As he fought to orient himself, his hand went instinctively to the source of pain in his side. Before his eyes focused completely, he had managed to locate the arm-long piece of steel spearing him clean through and pinning him to the scorched ground like a butterfly.

As he lay there, a constant ringing in his ears, signifying damage to the tympanum, all he could feel was the unbearable heat surrounding him, scorching his skin. Next online came the sense of smell, and the scent of rich greenery, wet earth, burned wood and chemicals assaulted him with enough power to make him gag. The involuntary clench of abdominal muscles caused him a world of pain, almost sending him unconscious again.

There seemed to be only one course of action available to him. He closed his eyes, took a few measured, steadying breaths and wrapped both hands over the ragged, hot piece of steel still slippery from his blood.

He was going to hate this part.

Slowly, rhythmically, he counted down from five and at reaching zero he pulled. With a sickening squelch the steel started moving. He felt the movement a scant second before the nauseating pain hit. Clenching his teeth Khan fought to control his breathing, slow deep breaths that allowed him to stay conscious throughout the whole sordid business of pulling that cursed piece of debris out of both the ground it was lodged in and his own body. Clawing and scratching at his willpower the entire time, he managed to finally disengage the foreign object from his body. As soon as the steel disengaged, blood came pouring out and instead of the wrenching sensation of being cut open alive, there was the deep, pulsing pain signalizing heavy internal bleeding.

Somehow he managed to roll onto his good side and vomited his last meal, heavily mixed with dark blood. Shivering like a child and probably crying as one too, Khan managed to press one of his hands against the wound, making sure that nothing other than blood came out. His fingers brushed over something slick and yielding in a very distinctive way.

Damn it.

Intestines.

He closed his eyes and vomited again.

With effort he managed to free his other hand from under him and press at the hole in his back. Thankfully nothing seemed to be falling out that way. The nausea struck again, making him gag and aggravating the excruciatingly painful wound. It was actually a sign that his body was rapidly regenerating. It wasn’t healing existing injuries but rather building the missing pieces at a very rapid pace. The fact that he was able to stay conscious and breathe fairly easily meant he either didn’t sustain other injuries or they were already healed by the time he woke up. Judging from the way his muscles burned, his body was spending huge amounts of energy on fixing him, large enough to have already used up whatever fat reserved he had and starting to burn down other tissues for the required energy. With his incredibly high and efficient metabolism it was already hard to keep any kind of fat reserve and now he obviously was burning through everything.

He was going to be mad hungry for weeks after this.

While he waited for his body to mend itself, Khan tried to keep his mind from both the pain and the nausea by focusing on sensing Kirk. Even though he never actually finished the bond between himself and the Captain, the bare bones of it were still there. Nowhere near what he shared with his crew but enough to at least know if the human was alive or not. Judging by the fact that he was lying in a patch of crushed and burned down forest with what looked at first sight as a quarter of the shuttle they crashed, the craft fragmented upon entering the atmosphere. Khan wasn’t very surprised he survived but as the human was so much weaker than he was, it would be a true miracle.  
Since the bond wasn’t complete he could only sense Kirk when the other was conscious and fairly close. 

It took a disturbingly long time to pick up the faint thread of the human’s presence, somewhere in front of Khan, it was so weak it had to be quite a distance away. The presence was there but there was something odd about it. It was flickering in and out of focus, trembling and fragmenting even as Khan pushed to know more. For a brief, insane moment, Khan regretted not completing the bond before he regained his senses. 

James Tiberius Kirk, while an admirable human being, was still just that. A human. Giving him the same rights as an Augment would have been ridiculous.

When the nausea subsided Khan knew he could try getting up. Both wounds the one in his back and the one in front were already closed, covered with fresh, pink, very thin skin when he checked them. Standing up he was pleased that he only felt dizzy for a few moments before his eyesight cleared and he could start to move.

All around him was a scene of carnage. Bits and pieces of smoldering equipment were strewn in a straight line burned through the native jungle. Judging from the furrows in the ground and the temperature of the charred trees they had hit the ground at an angle steep enough to slide and loose some of the energy, rather than plowing right into the surface. However weak and inferior the blond was, he was a truly capable pilot.

Ignoring the pain in his side, he started to lightly jog in the direction he thought the rest of the ship might be. It only took minutes before he was running towards the faint presence he could just sense. 

It didn’t take a genius to know that Kirk was slowly dying.

The jungle was truly huge, trees at least three times as big as the ones he saw on Earth, all leaves seemed to have an incredibly thick skin and it made sense with the temperature. He couldn’t be sure but it seemed to him that the temperature easily crossed fifty degrees Celsius in the shade and the slight tingling on his neck suggested that he was healing some severe sunburns along the way.

After following the path of destruction for about ten minutes he came up on an unexpected sight. He had been aware he was getting closer to the mountains he had glimpsed above the treetops but the sudden cliff was a surprise. He barely managed to catch himself on some trailing vines and stop his momentum before he plummeted down at least a mile.

Below there was a huge, ink black lake surrounded by rocks so white they almost hurt to look at.

While the fall itself wouldn’t kill Khan he was wary of the temperature. He knew his own body temperature was very elevated right now, his immune system fighting off the infection that was bound to start after both the rupturing of his intestines and the debris that must have stayed in the wound since he had nothing clean it out with. So while the fall wouldn’t kill him, a sudden temperature shock just might.

He looked around. Since there didn’t seem to be any signs of destruction on either side of the lake, and he’d followed the furrow the crashing ship made, it was only obvious that the shuttle fell had fallen into the lake. Since he could still somewhat sense Kirk, it meant the Captain was trapped in the wreckage, under the water.

Khan knew had to hurry. Once the human became brain dead, there would be no saving him.

Thankfully the cliff wasn’t so damn steep the whole way down. Only the first few hundred meters were a straight drop, after that the earth sloped more gently. Furthermore there seemed to be quite a bit of shrubbery and small trees scattered about on the whole cliff face.

Choosing the best route Khan stood at the lip of the cliff and had to grin at the sense of déjà vu. Damn if he hadn’t done something similar after the Vengeance crashed.

He jumped.

By the time he reached the bottom of the cliff, his hands were torn to shreds and he had lost a few fingernails. Still he managed to land away from the water. His abdomen screamed at him for the abuse of newly mended flesh and the nausea was returning but he really didn’t have time for that. He pulled the rags of his shirt off and then his pants and shoes. It was a testament to the technology of this age that they were still in a fairly good condition.

Stripped down to his underwear he waded into the water and immediately hissed. It was like stepping into fire, the water so cold it burned, likely just a few degrees shy from freezing. It had been a good decision not to jump right in.

Kirks presence was fading way too quickly for his comfort. 

It was surprisingly hard, forcing his body into the freezing water. The muscles in his calves and thighs kept seizing up from the cold and his teeth were already chattering. He splashed the unbearably cold water on his chest and his neck, trying to acclimatize.

The inky surface of the lake was very still, only the gentlest of waves marring it’s surface. It probably meant that it was very deep. The stillness was actually very fortunate because as he was wading in Khan could see the bubbles that broke the surface a hundred meters from him. Judging from the size of the bubbles and the amount that made it to the surface in a constant stream, they were escaping from the wreckage.

Good news for Khan, because he wouldn’t need to search the whole damn lake, bad for Kirk because it was his air that was escaping. He thought about slowly drowning, trapped in such a dark and cold place. 

A terrible way to die.

When he judged himself as acclimated to the water as possible he finally submersed. It still felt like a powerful kick to the chest, his muscles seizing for a brief moment before his heart kicked up into gear and leveled out. Swimming as fast as he could, it warmed him up some, but his limbs felt almost foreign, heavy in the cold water, muscles reacting with a sluggishness that was disturbing to him. Khan wondered if it was how humans felt all the time.

He got lucky, the wreckage was stuck in almost vertical position, jutting out of the rocky bottom like a twisted metal sculpture, and twisted it was. It took some careful investigation for Khan to realize it was a part of the cockpit. Then he had to resurface for air. The fact that his body was kicking into even higher rate of functioning to keep his core temperature even meant he couldn’t really hold his breath for as long as he liked. He gulped air and dived again, searching for a way into the wreckage.

He didn’t know exactly when, but somewhere between the first dive and the second, Kirk’s presence faded out completely.

The Captain was dead.

Suddenly angry he wrapped his hands around the twisted metal sheeting and ripped it apart. He got hit in the face with a rush of escaping air. After the bubbles cleared he saw that the hole was big enough for him to squeeze through. Once he pressed himself into the darkness beyond, he realized it was too dark to see, even for him. He reached blindly for a nearest wall and in an incredible stroke of luck managed to feel out the nearest emergency repair kit. He pulled the small box out of the wall and opened it. Because it was designed for space travel, all items inside were secured so nothing floated out. Quickly he felt out the two longest cylindrical objects. One was a small breathing apparatus with seven minutes of air and the other was a chemical light. He placed the breathing apparatus into his mouth, relishing the air, then crushed the other tube in his hand. Immediately a sickly yellow glow filled the cramped space. 

As he suspected he was inside the pilot station. On his left there was a mangled space that used to be a copilot seat, the very one he had been in before the transporter was ripped in two during the second explosion. Right in front of him, floating limply in the freezing water, with the emergency breather still in his mouth, was Kirk. Oddly enough his side of the pilot station was almost untouched, even the screens seemed to be whole. Beside Jim’s head there floated a few more, probably empty, breathers. The seatbelts were open but the blond was still in his seat.

Khan frowned and swam closer, keeping hold of the repair kit. It seemed that the Captain fought to survive but something was keeping him in place. Using the woefully inadequate light he tried to look over the humans’ body carefully. There were no visible wounds on his upper body so he went lower, trailing his free hand over the legs he couldn’t see. Both thighs were okay so he started checking lower and found the problem immediately. The console must have been crushed during the crash and bent inwards, trapping both the pilots legs. The left foot and everything halfway up Kirk’s calf on the right leg.

Experimentally he pushed at the console trying to see if there would be any give.

It didn’t budge.

For a few precious moments he considered his options. He knew how much time passed since the human drowned and the extreme cold of the water was actually helping in this situation, but if he didn’t get Kirk out of the water and reestablish breathing, the brain damage would be irreversible.

It was odd, but as he reached for the Captains foot, he felt a pang of pity. The blond was young and exceptionally bright for a human. If he survived he would be devastated.

Without further delay he yanked the foot with all his strength. Human flesh and the leather from the footwear was considerably weaker than metal and the foot came free. The shoe tore in half, but it protected the appendage inside enough that Jim lost only some of the skin and a top layer of muscles, nothing that couldn’t be healed.

Khan looked at the other leg. There was no way he would get that lucky again. Khan gripped the other leg firmly, it was either Kirks leg or his life and Khan was strangely disinclined to let the young Captain die.

He pulled.

The flesh gave up disturbingly easily. He was glad of the fact they were underwater, so that he didn’t have to hear the sound of skin, muscles, ligaments and bones tearing under his strength. The water turned instantly murky with blood.

Feeling nauseous again, this time for a completely different reason, Khan looked for something to bind what was left of Kirk’s leg. The only cloth in vicinity was the upholstery of the pilot chair. Damn the space age and the humans love of metal and plastic. He tore off as much of the upholstery as he could and wrapped it as tightly as possible over the... injury.

Pulling the limp, for all purposes dead, form of the Captain through the small opening he had made before was a feat in of itself, especially since he he was also carrying the repair kit with him. Jim lost some more skin before Khan had him out of the wreckage. He resurfaced and immediately started swimming at top speed. Hitting the bank he stood up and pulled the limp body out of the water, letting the extreme heat of the local sun start warming up the Captain.

Another few precious minutes were wasted finding a place flat enough to lay the human down. The rocks were hot from the sun and helped with rising body temperature so Khan tried to remember anything about human first aid. Augments had no need of medical assistance at this level. Whatever didn’t kill them immediately would go away on its own. First aid was something he learned almost by accident.

He cleared out Kirk’s throat, set him in the position he had seen humans use before and started the heart massage with forced breathes. Five chest compression and one exhale. At the first press on the blonde’s chest he heard a cracking sound and realized he had just broken ribs, at least one. He didn’t stop but he did try to control his strength better.

After what felt like hours the Captain jerked and started coughing up water. Immediately Khan rolled him over on his side to make it easier to clear his lungs. He sat back on his heels, breathing heavily and started to relax.

It was okay, heartbeat and breathing was reestablished.

The blond stopped coughing after a moment, but stayed in the same position Khan put him in. From his position Khan could clearly see the faint but regular pulse in the human’s neck.

He searched for the connection between them... and found nothing.

Underneath the scorching sun, surrounded by the oddly peaceful sounds of a living jungle, Khan realized that James Kirk was either brain dead or so deep in a coma that he registered as gone on his mental map.

“Fuck.” He cursed.

Khan felt angry and lost, disappointed that after all this effort the human was too weak to live, almost feeling cheated. He had no experience with the fragile humans, he had no idea what to do. One thing he knew was that if Jim was so far gone that he couldn’t sense him through the bond, then he absolutely wouldn’t survive without extensive medical help.

They had crashed on an uninhabited planet.

They were supposed to come back to Enterprise in three weeks. 

Nobody would look for them.

There would be no help.

He looked at the slack face of the unconscious human. His skin was a greenish tint to it and his lips were slightly parted, his whole body completely limp. He was just a piece of meat right now, nothing of the irritating yet bright spirit to animate the body.

It seemed wrong somehow.

Khan rubbed his face, pushing his wet hair back from his face.

“Damn it all to Hell. Fucking humans.”

Jim was dying.

The rest of his crew would probably going to declare mutiny on him the moment they realized what he was going to do now.

Still not really believing he was actually going to do this, Khan pulled the repair kit closer and opened it again. Inside there were neatly stacked small rolls, mostly for repairing cooling system failures, very common on small transport ships.

He took out the smallest set of flexible tubes and then pulled out the automatic inject device. Pulling the casing apart he found inside what he was looking for. A set of four long needles, each connected to a small reservoir with a tiny connection valve at the end. Carefully he teased out two of the needles and set to connecting the reservoirs with the tube. It wasn’t perfect but it looked like it was going to work.

Trying not to think too deeply of why and what he was doing, Khan stuck the needle into his vein, waiting till the blood forced all the air out, and then pressed the other one into Kirk’s elbow. 

For long, long moments nothing happened. The water lapped at the rocks, insects buzzed out a storm and the sun beat down on them without mercy. Khan watched his blood pump slowly into the deeply unconscious man and waited, carefully not thinking about the implications of his actions.

From one moment to the next, without any warning, Kirk’s body arched as if electrocuted. His mouth opened and he screamed so loud he scared a murder of local birds into flight.

He kept screaming for hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: The thing about hot bodies (expanded blood vessels) and cold water is true. If you sunbathe for a long time and then jump into a very cold water you can suffer heart attack, stroke, severe shock, seizures.
> 
> AN2: Khan is a bit iffy on human biology. He has barely any idea of first aid and even less of the many and various medical conditions we humans can display.


	4. Chapter 3

When he opened his eyes Jim wasn’t sure what exactly was going on. The last thing he remembered was the horrible sound of their shuttle entering atmosphere at a decidedly not recommended angle and speed and then everything went black as they lost pressure. In those scant seconds before completely blacking out Jim was fairly sure that he was going to die on some tiny, uninhabited planet.

 

Consciousness was something that had to be fought for, every time he surfaced his body was wracked with pain  The first thing he saw was a tiny campfire, burning close to him and then he noticed a small tube leading from his arm into darkness beyond the fire. After he managed to focus his eyes to see anything farther away than just in front of his nose, Jim saw Khan sitting with his back to the cave wall, the other end of the tube firmly in his arm, looking as if he’d carved a good portion of his own flesh out in order to secure it deeply enough. There was blood and dirt running all the way down the pale, muscled arm while the man slowly flexing his fingers, making the blood pump through the tube.

 

_Oh_.

 

Suddenly him being alive made so much more sense.

 

*             *             *

 

            Jim drifted in and out of consciousness more times than he could count. Sometimes it was dark and very cold inside the cave where he lay, sometimes it was much lighter and almost too hot. From one moment to the next things seemed to appear. Once he lay on the hard ground, the other time he felt something much softer, somewhat crunchier under his back. He could smell a decidedly familiar scent and could feel some kind of cloth against his naked skin.

 

Each time he faded out he dreamed of darkness, cold as ice, and water flooding his lungs. It didn’t matter how much he thrashed, he could never wake up from the nightmares.

 

Some things were constant though. There was pain, always pain. Sometimes dull and throbbing, sometimes so fierce it made Jim beg for it to stop. The other constant was Khan. More often than not, when Jim woke up the Augment was sitting somewhere close, a thin tube connecting them, feeding blood into the blond. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the instances of the wild, burning pain spreading through his body were connected with the transfusions. Hazily, the Captain remembered that when he was particularly unguarded, tired from the nightmares, he would cry and beg the dark haired man to stop, to let him be, to let him die.

 

Khan never listened.

 

When Jim woke up again he felt marginally less like a two week old zombie and more like a fresh roadkill, just barely starting to smell. His whole body hurt, his mouth was so dry it felt like it was stuck closed, but it was his right leg he noticed the most. It burned like fire.

 

As before, he was in some kind of a cave, a small fire burning very close to him and on the other side of it was Khan, innards of some electronic device strewn all around him.

 

“Was I dead?” Jim managed to croak out, the effort feeling like an enormous achievement.

 

Khan’s face turned towards him but Jim was too wrecked to read his expression well, and the flickering light of the fire wasn’t helping any, casting irregular shadows on the Augment’s face.

 

“I wasn’t sure.”

 

Kirk spent a long moment contemplating that answer. He couldn’t decide if it was funny or scary as fuck.

 

“So you decided to pump me full of your blood again, just in case?”

 

“It seemed to work before.” Khan rumbled his answer in that unbelievable voice of his.

 

Kirk closed his eyes again.

 

“Bones developed a serum from your blood, he didn’t just inject it.” Jim groused thinking about things like blood types and the RH factor.

 

“It didn’t seem to make a difference, didn’t it? Seeing as you are awake and aware now. Besides I am an universal donor. We all are.” Khan unexpectedly referred to his crew.

 

Jim wanted to be angry at Khan for his seeming disregard of his life but that wouldn’t be exactly true. The man had obviously saved Jim’s life, even if his attitude was somewhat cavalier about it.

 

“What happened? I remember hitting the atmosphere and then nothing.” Well he did remember being exceedingly cold and very, very scared but couldn’t quite grasp why.

 

Khan’s pale eyes were startlingly visible in the gloom of the cave.

 

“The heat tore a hole in the shuttle. Upon the impact the shuttle broke apart into three parts. I was thrown out since I was placed directly at the point of separation. When I regained consciousness I followed the trail of destruction. The other part of the transporter fell into a big lake. With you on board. You were trapped inside. It took some... sacrifices to free you. When I pulled you out, you weren’t breathing. I had no way of knowing if you were already brain dead or not.”

 

Khan’s delivery was calm, almost unfeeling. It told Jim nothing of the conflict Khan felt when saving the human.

 

Jim pulled himself into something that resembled sitting up position, even if he was suspiciously slumped forward and panting as if he just ran a marathon.

 

Beside him he noticed the tube he vaguely remembered being attached to his arm, with two huge ass needles on both ends.

 

“This doesn’t look like medical equipment.” Jim remarked, mind still somewhat sluggish.

 

Khan shrugged.

 

“There was no med kit in the wreck. I had to use the emergency repair kit. The lubrication injection device came in handy.”

 

Jim stared.

 

Tubing from the cooling system, parts of a mechanical device used to inject lubricant and sealant into small spaces. Both previously used before for their intended purpose. No disinfectant anywhere in evidence. Bones would drop dead if he ever heard about it, that’s for sure.

 

Jim looked around some more and noticed that there were many things strewn in the cave. There were pieces of metal and devices, obviously stripped from the wreckage. There were also piles of large walnut like items that were being used inside the fireplace instead of wood.

 

“Those nuts are full of some kind of oil, they can burn a lot longer than simple wood.” Khan noticed what Jim was looking at and explained.

 

Next Jim saw that Khan was sitting on a pallet made of thick layer of some kind of dry grass and some kind of membranous cloth on top. Actually now that he looked closer, his own pallet was made the same way.

 

“How long have I been unconscious actually?” The blond asked, realizing that if Khan managed to gather all those things from the wreckage and keep Jim alive at the same time, it had to take some time.

 

“About eight days. The day/night cycles here seem to be longer than the standard twenty four hours. Also we must not venture outside the cave during the night. During the day the temperatures keep between forty and fifty degrees Celsius but during the night it drops to twenty below zero. We lack proper clothing to stand those kinds of temperatures for long.”

 

Jim stared at the material covering him. Eight days. For all of Khan’s brevity it must have been hard, keeping an unconscious human alive for so long.

 

“What is this?” Jim asked, fingering the bright blue cloth. It didn’t seem like any blanket he had ever seen.

 

“Hull insulation membrane. I stripped it from the hull of the part you crashed in.” Khan said matter of fact. Jim looked at the dark haired man. He knew before, but it was different seeing it now, how scarily efficient and methodical he was.

 

“Good thinking, this.” He praised, rubbing at his thigh. “God but my leg hurts.” He complained getting a hold of the makeshift blanket.

 

“Wait!” Khan’s barked out warning came a bit too late though as he was already flinging the blanket away.

 

At first he didn’t quite understand what he was seeing. His left foot was a mess of bruising and already peeling scabs. His other leg was thickly wrapped in what looked suspiciously like the pilot chair upholstery. But even with that incredulity, Jim had no choice but to notice that despite the thick wrapping there was significantly... less of his right leg that there should be.

 

Khan’s words came back to him now.

 

_Sacrifices_

 

Not taking his eyes away from what was left of his leg he asked with a voice that was definitely shaking.

 

“What...”

 

He didn’t even notice the Augment getting up and closing the distance between them. Khan stood so close to Jim, they almost touched.

 

“It was either your leg or your life.” Khan said slowly, his voice almost gentle. “I chose your life.”

 

Jim closed his eyes, valiantly trying to forget the image seared into his mind.

 

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

 

And he was.

 

He threw up bile for so long he eventually passed out from exhaustion. If Khan noticed that his face was wet not only from sweat, he was decent enough not to mention it.

 

            That was how their decidedly odd stay on the planet began. Jim’s other injuries healed well and he was able to move around with the help of a branch that served as a crutch. Bored and still in pain he followed Khan on his daily trips to the lake. While the Augment braved the freezing water to search the wreckage or to hunt. His crew probably didn’t even know they were missing yet, since their assignment was supposed to take at least six weeks. And once they realized something was wrong and started to search for them, it would take  time to find them. The first explosion threw them out of the warp and blew out their communication systems. The damage was way too extensive to be accidental, so Jim was sure that whoever set the bomb wanted to made sure no one would go looking for a missing Starfleet shuttle. Khan tried to rescue enough from the wreckage to be able to design some kind of communications device but between the explosion, the atmospheric entry and the water, everything electronic was completely fried.

 

It was a bit of a guilty pleasure to come down to the lake each day and watch Khan spearfish. The Augment managed to save one small laser cutter from the wreckage and had used it to sharpen branches.

 

Each day he would wade into the dark, cold water, swim to one of the snow white rocks jutting out of the dark waters a little further away from the shore.

 

Besides the cold, Jim couldn’t stand getting anywhere close to the water. Even the sound of waves lapping at the rocks made him nauseous.

 

The blond opted to stay at the shore, busying himself with pouring water into a shallow rock basin, so that the sun could warm it up enough for them to use it for washing comfortably. While he waited, sitting under a huge leaf he used as a sun umbrella, he often watched as Khan stripped down to his underwear, his pale skin already getting a dark brown tan. His sculpted body was really something to look at. Jim loved the way his arms worked as he swam and the way his back rolled as he pulled himself onto the rocky outcropping.

 

For long minutes, sometimes even hours Khan would stay almost motionless on that rock, back straight, head bowed, wet hair falling into his face, a spear in one hand as he waited for his chance. Once he moved he always got his prey. One violent burst of motion and he was pulling out a bigass fish speared cleanly through from the water.

 

They fell into a routine surprisingly quickly. While Khan would hunt, Jim would gather water in the small indentations in the boulders that littered the shore to warm it up for washing. Later when Khan stayed in the sun to warm himself up from the diving, Jim would search as much of surrounding area for anything useful. Considering the all but pitiful speed Jim could manage, it usually took him the rest of the day. He did manage to find some interesting things. The pink, empty shells the size of about an average soup bowl turned out to be very useful, because now they could keep some water in the cave. They were even thick enough to cook in them over the fire. He also usually gathered some fruit and nuts that looked to be edible to local fauna and took them to Khan for testing for poisons.

 

The only problem was boredom. There was plenty of food available and with the shelter for the night there was no direct danger to their lives. All they had to do was wait to be rescued.

 

Waiting wasn’t Jim’s strong suit.

 

One of those evenings found Khan and him sitting in the cave while it poured cats and dogs outside.

 

Watching the Augment turn another piece of fried circuitry in his hands he knew Khan was as bored as him. If the weather was good they could busy themselves with inventing ways to make their stay easier. However because of the heavy rain, they were confined to the small space and unable to avoid each other. And that was what Khan was doing. Oh he didn’t skimp on the touching this time, there was always a pat on his back, a brush of a hand over his arm, always enough contact that the side effects of their bond didn’t show but if Jim was honest, he could count the conversations he had with the Augment on the fingers of only one hand.

 

Carefully maneuvering his crutch, Jim made his way to the Augmented human’s side.

 

“Khan.” He started, somewhat uncomfortable.

 

“What?” The dark haired man didn’t look at Jim and the blond sighed. Carefully, he lowered himself to sit beside Khan.

 

“I... wanted to thank you.” This time the Augment turned to look at the blond.

 

“For what?”

 

“Saving my life.” Jim made an effort not to roll his eyes, even though he really wanted to.

 

Khan turned the piece of circuitry in his hands again and again. Jim looked at those long, surprisingly graceful fingers and had to wonder again at the grace in the man. If he was created for a time of war, he seemed remarkably unsuited for it.

 

“Well, it’s not like I had a choice.” Khan answered finally and wow, but it was the worst lie the Augment had told Jim yet.

 

The blond wriggled down to sit more comfortably and leaned down on his elbows, adopting a casually relaxed pose. The more time he spend in Khan’s company, the more he learned about the significance of body language during conversations, negotiations or arguments. Somehow now he felt like he was doing all three at the same time. Thinking back Khan usually made him feel that way.

 

“That was awful.” Jim remarked, ostentatiously looking at his fingernails. They were already too long and had dirt caked under them, the perils of no soap he supposed. “You are usually better at lying than this.”

 

This seemed to catch Khan’s attention finally. The older man threw the piece of electronic trash away and turned to Jim, finally giving the young Captain his whole attention. His pale, intense eyes seemed to burn in the flickering glow of the fireplace and the shadows on his cheekbones were unreal.

 

“Lie?” He inquired with that deceptive slowness of his.

 

Jim felt the familiar spike of adrenaline in his system every time Khan got that half intrigued, half irritated look on him, every time the Augment gave Jim his whole, undivided attention. He stretched out more comfortably on the pallet and looked up at the other man with a tiny smirk on his lips.

 

“You have Katya and Turin, you also have the exact location of at least ten, if not more of your crew members. You don’t really need me anymore. I saw how adaptable and efficient you guys are. With thirteen of you, finding the rest of your crew would be entirely possible. My usefulness doesn’t outweigh the drawbacks any more. You could have let me die.”

 

Khan clenched his jaw, and Jim watched the muscle jump, but said nothing. Surprisingly it was the older man who broke their eye contact first. He not only turned his face away but got up and went to add more of those oily nuts to the fire. It was more of a retreat than Jim ever expected of him.

 

“And yet I didn’t.” Khan’s voice was again that incredibly low rumble that instantly caused goosebumps to appear on the blonde’s skin.

 

Oh, but he had it bad.

 

“And yet you didn’t.” Jim agreed, lying down on the pallet completely, making it a point not to look at the dark haired man again.

 

They stayed in silence for a long while, the only sound in the room the cracking of the burning nuts and the steady beat of rain coming in from the mouth of the cave. Without his notice Jim started falling into a light doze.

 

He woke up when Khan came back to him some undefined time later, standing over him with that perfectly straight posture, his eyes hidden in the shadows and the tube with the needles on both ends, hanging from his hand.

 

Jim looked at the tube for a long time. He could easily say that he hated it more than anything else right now. The pain the transfusions caused him was bad enough that he truly considered refusing. Of course his refusal didn’t mean that Khan wouldn’t do whatever he pleased anyway but it was nice pretending.

 

And to think Turin was taking those transfusions for years.

 

“Why?” Jim asked finally.

 

Khan sat down on the floor beside Jim and started to push the needle under his own skin. It was a very big needle.

 

“You are trying to save my leg, aren’t you?” Jim pushed, finally tired of the status quo between them. “But there is nothing to heal, there is nothing below my shin Khan. Nothing.”

 

“My blood doesn’t heal in the way you understand it. It merely rebuilds the body of the host according to the provided data.” Khan started speaking unexpectedly, even as he reached for Jim’s arm, that was now riddled with small, uneven scars. “Your DNA is coded for two legs of a certain shape and size. If I will it hard enough, my blood might force your body to rebuild the lost appendage, the way it would regrow hair or skin.” Khan explained slowly, almost gently.

 

“But there’s no guarantee, right?” Jim pressed again. He was proud of himself, except that first night he hadn’t once broken down about his leg. He had kept calm and focused on what he could still do.

 

He made sure never to look when Khan changed the bandages too.

 

“No, there’s not.”

 

The needle was in and the dark liquid started to slowly flow into the blonde’s body.

 

In moment’s Jim was consumed by flames burning his body from within.

 


	5. Chapter 4

 

“Stop looking at me like that!” Khan barked at him, his jaw clenched so tight Jim could see the small muscle jumping up and down.

 

Hand clenched tightly on the makeshift cane, Jim managed to pull himself up to his full height. His heart was beating madly, palms sweating. He would be damned if he would face this any other way than as an equal, a crippled leg or not.

 

“I would.” He answered with a forced calmness that fooled no one. “If you would stop _calling_ me.”

 

There, he said it. He threw the spark that was sure to start an inferno.

 

The dark haired man whirled on him, his pale eyes burning.

 

“What?”

 

Jim held his ground, head held high and resolved to face this once and for all.

 

“I admit my own attraction, admit I like your body, I like watching the way you move, I find your unrestrained power unbelievably hot. But it’s not like I could deny it anyway with the blood bond we share, isn’t it?” Jim put so much effort into speaking slowly and calmly, making himself understood beyond any doubt, that he could feel himself starting to sweat.

 

Khan’s body lost some of its tension, the muscles relaxing slightly as it seemed that Jim would take all the blame on himself.

 

“But even all that wouldn’t stop me from refusing this attraction, shelving it as something not important, something that had no impact on my daily life, if it wasn’t for the way you KEEP PULLING AT THE BOND!” Somehow he had ended up shouting despite his best efforts. Khan actually took a step back from Jim, his face rapidly paling, stripped from his usual cool. He looked as if Jim had slapped him. “You keep pulling and pushing, poking at it the whole damn time. Do you think I really wouldn’t notice? Well I do. I have no idea if you are doing it consciously or not but it’s driving me mad.  What the hell do you expect me to do when in the back of my mind, every second of every day, there’s you calling for my attention?”

 

Jim stopped his tirade, panting for breath and clutching at his cane as if it was a lifeline.

 

“And please have enough decency not to lie to my face that you have no idea what I am taking about. You do, okay? I fucking know you do. I see it in all the things you don’t do and all the things you don’t say.”

 

The dark haired man turned his face away from Jim, breaking contact, giving ground probably for the first time since that talk in Khan’s cell that started this whole harebrained deal. Jim should have felt vindicated, should have been happy to finally win but all he felt was bitterness in his mouth. This was all so damn fucked up it was probably going to end with both of them torn to shreds one way or another. Yet he would rather have that than this eternal indecision, this second guessing of himself all the time.

 

It was ironic how much effort Spock went to in order to teach Kirk the meaning of helplessness and here was Khan, managing to do it almost by accident.

 

“I may be weak and human.” Jim said a lot more calmly, like a man realizing that this was it,  there’s no way back any more. “But you are a coward.”

 

Khan almost growled at the accusation, he snapped his head around, his pale eyes burning.

 

“You are calling me coward? You? You whose resolve is so half hearted all the time you can’t even choose your own path?” As usual, Jim should have remembered that for Khan the best defense was a fucking unstoppable offence. Once threatened he went for the throat immediately.

 

And damn if his aim wasn’t perfect too.

 

Jim licked his dry lips, not bothering to defend himself. If anything, meeting Admiral Frey, showed him how undecided about this whole mess he really was. He could barely sleep, barely eat for the three days he kept that damned piece of paper in his pocket, the knowledge burning like acid.

 

“I am making my choice now.” Jim said quietly. “I will not hesitate any more. Logically I know trusting you is a mistake, that I will probably pay a great price for it later, but I think it’s too late for me anyway. For better or worse I do trust you.”

 

Khan’s pale grey bored into Jim, but the Augment stayed quiet and still as a statue as Jim made a cautious step towards him and then let go of the branch he was using as a cane, letting it fall onto the ground. He stood there wobbling for a moment before he reached out to Khan, getting a hold of his broad shoulder to steady himself, feeling the muscles jump under the deceptively pale skin.

 

Awkwardly he shuffled closer until his chest was flush with the other man’s and their faces so close, only a breath separated them.

 

“What are you doing? I don’t trust you. You don’t trust me. Stop.” The augment wasn’t moving though, his body like a pillar of stone.

 

Maybe it was Khan’s way of being considerate but it only felt like rejection  to Jim.

 

“Do you know?” Jim said quietly, so close to Khan he could smell the fresh sweat on him and the smell of the water he had been submerged in earlier. “Half hearted kindness is the worst form of cruelty?”

 

Body tense as steel, Khan closed his eyes and exhaled loud and long.

 

“Very well then. Do not blame me for it later.” Khan said with deceptive slowness, his voice tight, betraying nothing.

 

The dark haired man placed his hand on Jim’s hip, fingers oddly careful. The hand felt heavy and absolute somehow like a herald of change, a symbol of the power and cruelty this man possessed in spades. Jim remembered the way Khan was with Katya, with Turin and hoped those emotions weren’t reserved only for the other Augments.

 

Jim snorted.

 

“When have you ever accepted any blame?”

 

In a heartbeat the almost gentle hand on his hip turned into a vice. Khan hooked both hands under Jim’s butt and hoisted him up as if he weighed nothing. The Captain found himself slammed against the nearest tree with enough strength to knock the breath out of him. The kiss they shared wasn’t so much a kiss as an attempt to devour each other. It had nothing in common with the slow, controlled caress they shared in Jim’s quarters so long ago. This had teeth clicking against each other, kisses so forceful Jim could taste his own and Khan’s blood in his mouth. He gripped at the tightly muscled shoulders hard enough that his fingers dug deep into the unprotected skin. It only seemed to spur Khan on. The older man used his chest to press Jim to the tree, keeping him in place while his hands tore none too gently at the clothes that separated them.

 

It hit Jim like a ton of bricks then, how hot, how arousing it felt to have sex with somebody so obviously more powerful physically than him. Khan kept him off the ground effortlessly, forcing Jim to cling onto him in fear of falling and injuring his bad leg. The blond panted into Khan’s mouth, trailing sloppy kisses and bites over whatever part of the Augment he could reach. The dark haired man was doing his level best to divest him of his pants without actually letting go, all restraint already out the window. Jim realized, somehow belatedly, that he was going to be taken, fucked within an inch of his life in the next few minutes and there was already no way of stopping this, even if he had wanted to.

 

If he was honest with himself he always knew it would turn out this way. Khan could never resist the lure of the final power play; even in something as personal as sex it was a given. Jim came into this with his eyes open, decision made. It would most probably end badly for him, but hesitating was not his preferred way of doing things.

 

Now, pressed against that sculpted body, feeling the elevated heartbeat and the hot, smooth skin under his hands he couldn’t regret it. His blood was rushing in his ears, his cock already painfully hard. It was unreal just how much he wanted Khan, how obsessed he was, how fucking hot he found the man. While he was no stranger to being attracted to men, women were his speciality. This rush of heat burning out the last remnants of coherent thought out of him was something he felt for the very first time in his life.

 

He used his good leg to hook it over Khan’s hip and align them perfectly. Through the two layers of cloth he could feel just how affected, Khan was too. All he wanted was to rub himself against that hard body while Khan mauled his neck with his lips and teeth, till he came but the sunset was already starting and if they stayed outside after dark it would not end well.

 

Jim tried to push Khan away enough to be able to speak but the dark haired man just pressed for another of those devouring, unstoppable kisses and exploited the change of position to press Jim even harder against the tree and rut against him. Powerful, slow rolls of his hips threatened to liquefy whatever was left of Jim’s brain, with his mouth full of tongue he could only pull on Khan’s hair hard enough to make him notice.

 

“What?” The older man growled against Jim’s mouth, hips still moving against the blond in a maddening rhythm.

 

“Sunset.” Jim managed to pant out.

 

Khan tilted his head to look at the sky and cursed quietly. It was already turning orange. He cast a quick look at the entrance to the cave and then at Jim, trailing his eyes to the wrapping hiding the horrifying damage to Jim’s leg. There was no way the blond could get to the cave before nightfall on his own.

 

Jim realized Khan’s intentions the same moment the Augment started to move.

 

“Don’t you…oof!” He never finished his warning before the breath was knocked out of him, again, this time by the virtue of being thrown over Khan’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The Augment wrapped one of those inhumanly strong arms around Jim’s good leg and started moving up the hill so quickly that Jim flailed trying to keep himself from bouncing up and down. The shoulder under his belly felt like a piece of rebar and the blond felt blood rushing to his head, not from arousal this time.

 

“You fucking bastard.” He muttered, eying the unprotected back and imagining how many blows to the helpfully exposed kidneys he could deliver before the Augment managed to stop him. As if sensing his train of thought Khan sped up into a jog and it made Jim flail again, this time catching hold of the other man’s waistband and holding on to stop the dreadful bouncing.

 

“Kill…” He managed between the bounces “Kill you” another bounce “ _dead_.”

 

It wasn’t longer than a minute when the world was turned upside down again and Jim found himself being lowered on the pallet of grass and isolation membrane.

 

Thoroughly humiliated Jim spent a long while staring at the uneven ceiling of the cave, trying to get his breath back.

 

“Do me a favor and never, _ever_ do that again.” He said after a moment.

 

When he looked at Khan again, the litany of complaints he had trailed off. The other man was still shirtless, the light of the always burning fire flickering over the hard, extremely defined muscles, the grooves and curves cast in enticing shadows. In this light and from his prone position, the bulge in Khan’s pants was not only very visible but also very... impressive.

 

Jim’s mouth went dry.

 

When he dragged his eyes up to the Augment’s face he saw the pale eyes with pupils blown so wide there was no grey left in them and that wide, now red mouth curved into a wicked smirk.

 

“You like what you see.” Khan rumbled in that incredibly deep voice of his.

 

Jim swallowed.

 

“Yeah... I really do.”

 

Khan dropped his hands to his own waistband and started slowly unbuttoning his pants. Jim’s throat was as dry as a Sahara desert.

 

“You better get rid of your clothes Captain.” Unbelievably Khan’s voice dropped another few registers, sending shivers down Jim’s back.

  
  



	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unabashed porn ahead, no plot whatsoever in this chapter. I am not kidding here folks:)

Part 6

 

Undressing under Khan’s cool, watchful eyes was an exercise in self-control. Jim thanked the stars for his slutty past, his experience with sex with all kinds of partners because there was no easy or graceful way of divesting himself of clothes sitting down, with one leg totally out of commission. He pulled his pants and underwear in one go and smiled triumphantly up at Khan as he tossed the garments away.

 

The smile died away as soon as his eyes locked on the Augmented man’s form.

 

He was completely naked already, standing tall, proud and completely unselfconscious. His erect cock was jutting out from a patch of very dark hair but outside that he was almost hairless. His skin gleamed gently in the flickering light of the fire, body as defined as if carved from marble.

 

Khan locked his eyes with Jim’s fearlessly, strangely seeming even more powerful now, naked, than ever before. Judging by how hard his own cock was, Jim found that self-assurance damn sexy.

 

The augmented human moved, in one smooth action he straddled Jim and lowered himself to his knees, setting above the blond man’s thighs. Jim didn’t know what to look at first: the way his powerful muscles flexed, or how the six pack on his stomach became even more defined during the maneuver. In the end he tried to take in it all, the muscles, the smooth, hairless skin, the perfectly formed, heavy penis and the eyes already dark with lust.

 

“I know what you want” Jim said almost breathlessly. They were barely touching but Jim was more turned on than with most of his past lovers during the act itself.

 

Khan’s lips twisted into a condescending smirk. He bent down and rested one broad hand on Jim’s chest and the other just millimeters from the Captain’s ear, effectively entrapping Jim within a prison of his flesh.

 

“You presume to know what I want?” Khan rumbled, letting his eyes roam over the differences between them. They were both very fit but Jim was a different creature altogether. Golden hair, golden skin, chest covered with curly hair that trailed down his stomach, darkening along the way to his groin. “Careful, that is a dangerous path to walk.”

 

Jim arched a little under the attention, showing off his own toned physique. No one was going to intimidate him during sex. That was his domain.

 

“Oh I know.” Jim said with a wicked smirk, turning his head to nip gently at Khan’s wrist, licking the bite soothingly afterwards. “I knew from the time I saw you in the underground cell.”

 

Khan bent his arm, resting on his elbow now, bringing his chest so close to Jim’s they almost, almost touched.

 

It was maddening.

 

“Pray tell me then, what is it that I desire?”

 

Jim locked his eyes with Khan’s fearlessly and challengingly. This round was his, he was going to win all the battles and come up the victor in this little war.

 

“You wanted to _wreck_ me.”

 

There was a flash of something remarkably like admiration in Khan’s eyes even as his pupils dilated even more. He licked his lips, wetting them, making them look softer.

 

“Yes. I am going to wreck you Kirk, pull you apart until there’s nothing of yourself left.” He rumbled even as he lowered his head, closing the prison of flesh and finally kissing Jim.

 

They spent some time on just kissing and touching, revering in the contrast of their bodies, in the freedom to finally touch, pressing their naked cocks together and just enjoying the fiction. Somewhere during their mutual quest to touch as much as possible, Khan managed to shift his position from straddling Jim to kneeling between his legs, finding an ever better position to grind his hips.

 

When the blond felt the hands gripping his buttocks and lifting him easily off the ground, he moaned. In a way he finally understood some of the fascination his past girls had with his well developed arms and the way he could manhandle them in bed, now he was the one spreading his legs eagerly for Khan. As the older man took the invitation and slid his fingers lower, touching his hole, the human groaned, realizing something.

 

“Wait.” He gasped, pulling insistently at Khan’s hair. It was already messed up beyond belief, strands falling all over the place, into his eyes, over his ridiculously sharp cheekbones and his ears. Khan looked up at him but didn’t move from his position, his fingers still gently but insistently circling Jim’s anus.

 

“Lube.” The blond managed to gasp. “We need something.”

 

This time Jim whined in protest when Khan sat up letting go of him completely, Jim’s ass falling onto his rock hard thighs as he stretched out on his knees, reaching for something behind the blond.

 

Jim wanted to follow Khan’s movements but the sight of the pectoral muscles stretched just inches from his face was too distracting. Before he had the time to actually realize what he was doing, Jim arched and bit as much flesh as he could get. Being so close he heard the way Khan’s breathing hitched, so he did it again. Biting, licking and sucking at the skin, mauling the muscle and finally reaching one of the dark, flat nipples that had caught his attention every single day when the Augment stripped for diving. He latched his teeth onto it and started gently chewing, pulling, just being as distracting as possible.

 

For a brief moment Khan curled his body over Jim, pushing into the rough caress and Jim followed the flow. He caught hold of Khan’s hips and pulled, making good use of his own upper body strength, pressing even closer, craning his neck to catch the other nipple.

 

The dark haired man finally pulled himself away, now a heavy flush covering not only his face but also creeping down his chest. He knelt up again, towering over Jim, both of them panting, flushed and hard.

 

Raised above them, Khan held one of the nuts they used instead of firewood. Keeping his eyes on Jim the whole time, Khan flexed his muscles and a loud crack could be heard as the thick shell of the coconut sized nut started cracking.

 

Mesmerized Jim stared as the nut gave up under Khan’s unbridled strength and started to cave in, the cracks oozing a dark green oil. The nut was edible, they had checked it before, but tasted like cardboard so they had stayed with using it to fuel the fire. Now Khan found another use for it. As he squeezed, the oil flew more freely, gathering in the palm of his hand, slipping over the corded muscles of his forearm, slicking the skin and dripping in slow rivulets from his elbow down onto Jim’s stomach. The cold, thick, pungent liquid splashed onto Jim’s skin, pooling in the grooves of his muscles. When he sucked in his stomach it slowly shifted towards his belly button.

 

Khan threw the crushed nut into the fireplace and then reached unceremoniously between Jim’s legs. He gave the blond man’s balls a passing stroke as he pressed that oil slick hand to Jim’s hole and pushed two fingers inside almost immediately.

 

Jim cursed as he felt the slick way the digits just pushed in, stretching him. It burned slightly, the stretch an almost forgotten feeling. The Augment watching him carefully, assessing and Jim didn’t like the level of control he still had. So he grinned and ran his hand over his messy stomach, gathering some of the oil. Then still keeping eye contact with Khan he pressed that messy hand to the other man’s stomach and slowly trailed it lower. In a slow, open handed glide he reached the other man’s groin and closed his hand over the impressive erection. It was a proportional length but damn, it was thick and hot and so damn ready. No matter how cool Khan looked, this part of him could not pretend.

 

He stroked until the dark haired man’s eyelids fluttered closed. He muttered something under his breath and in a show of coordination Jim was fairly envious of, grabbed Jim’s wrist forcing it up and over his head. In seconds Jim found himself with his wrist pinned to the ground over his head, Khan stretched out over him again, panting, dishelmed, reminding him of the way he looked after taking on a whole Klingon unit on Qo’noS.

 

He looked wild.

 

Jim’s breath hitched as the man pulled his fingers away and positioned himself at Jim’s entrance. The push in was slow, controlled, painful and so damn irresistible. Jim was pinned in place by Khan’s strength and his bulk, he was left with no leverage so all he could do was lay there and take it. There was nothing for him to focus on but the burning stretch, the way Khan just pushed his cock in and in, slowly and so unyieldingly.

 

It had been so long and his preparation was too rushed that it hurt though Jim didn’t want it to stop. He felt it was the most honest thing Khan ever had done to him.

 

As Khan finally bottomed, he paused and used the oil slick hand to stroke Jim’s flagging erection. The blond mewled, almost trying to twist away from sensation. It was too much, thinking, experiencing anything else than that cock stretching him to the limit was impossible, too much, almost painful.

 

“Breathe damn it.” Khan forced out between his own forcedly regular breaths. “Relax. Let me in. No other option now.”

 

Eventually Jim managed to gulp a few breaths in and relax the clench of his body. As soon as Khan felt the change he pulled halfway out and pushed in again, in a long, slow slide. The oil made everything slick and almost easy, and the rhythmic, ruthlessly controlled roll of Khan’s hips was guaranteed to drive Jim crazy in minutes. Like the overachiever he was, Khan of course managed to nail his prostate with every single move.

 

Jim closed his eyes, unable to look at the man above him, he turned his face away trying to hide how affected he was, how everytime Khan fucked into him as if he had a right to it, it affected Jim, forcing moans and gasps out of his throat while the Augment was almost completely silent. The only sound in the cave was the cracking of the fire, the unbelievably filthy sound of flesh slapping flesh and Jim’s ragged breathing.

He was so hard, his balls were tightening rapidly and he was aware he was going to come just from this, just from being fucked and without a single touch on his cock.

 

“Look at me.” Demanded the dark haired man tightly. When Jim didn’t obey immediately Khan shifted on his knees, rising a bit and taking Jim’s whole lower body with him. As easily as if Jim weighted nothing Khan folded him almost in half, lowering his face to Jim’s. In this position he had definitely more leverage and used it. His thrusts became a little faster, a little harder, a whole damn deeper.

 

Jim opened his eyes, damn near blind to anything but the stretch, the burn, the way Khan filled him in an undeniable, ultimate way.

 

“You like it this way, don’t you. Slow, almost too deep, just shy of too hard.” Khan’s voice was reaching some incredibly low registers, caressing Jim in a way Khan’s occupied hands couldn’t. “You will come. Just like this. Just from my cock. I don’t even need to touch you.”

 

“Yes!” Jim managed to pant out just as his orgasm crashed over him, making his whole body clench and tighten in a few, rhythmical spasms. The mess of oil on his stomach was joined by his own come and his ass squeezed so hard on Khan, the blond almost sobbed from pain mixed with pleasure. As soon as he came, he relaxed boneless into the Augment’s hold.

 

Khan tightened his grip on Jim’s hand enough to bruise and quickened his thrusts. In just a few, frenzied moments he was the one tensing over Jim, coming, filling him with scalding hot release.

 

After that they spend long minutes just breathing, trying to come down from the ridiculous physical exertion that was sex and orgasm. When Khan finally let go of Jim’s wrist and pulled out, the blond was ready for a nap. His whole body was tingling, the sexual release he hadn’t had for many months now sending him into a happy doze.

 

Easily he let himself be rearranged like a toy, Khan manhandling him into lying on his side. When Jim felt the other man behind him he made an approving sound, some cuddling would be terrific in the definitely cool air of the cave and Khan was like a portable heater all on his own. He was just about to push back into the warm chest when he felt wide hands at his ass again. He made an inquiring sound as the older man pushed Jim’s cheeks apart and exposed his slightly abused hole to the cold air.

 

Even that didn’t arouse the human’s suspicions until he felt the other man move closer to him and on his thigh he felt pressed something that could only be a cock. A fully erect, wet, hot cock.

 

_What?_

 

“You have got to be joking.” He said disbelievingly, trying to twist around enough to look at Khan and what could not possibly be another erection.

 

“I told you before, didn’t I?” Khan, the bastard, chucked into his ear. “I am better. It’s only logical that it goes for my stamina too.”

 

With that he pushed into Jim again. The blond Captain moaned embarrassingly loud as he felt that hot, hard flesh stretch him again.

 

This time it went in easier. Jim was both stretched and wet, and still high on endorphins. On the first try Khan went in balls deep, pressing his whole body into Jim’s from behind, like a line of scorching fire.

 

“Some warning would have been nice.” The Captain managed to say between the slow, unrelenting thrusts that of course had to nail his prostate almost every time. It made it hard to think, hard to breathe.

 

Jim was almost grateful he wasn’t hard, his body already tethering on the edge of overstimulation.

 

“Why?” Khan asked, pulling Jim even closed into his body. “You like it this way.”

 

And he did, he really did. Everything was easier, wetter now. Jim could just go with the flow, could enjoy the stretch and the even, measured force of Khan’s movements.  Each thrust shifted him a little forward so he tried to get better leverage to press against the thrusts without jerking his leg.

 

He grunted and moaned shamelessly, focusing on all the tiny details. The way the small hair on Khan’s thighs tickled his own, the way he could feel the unbridled power in the Augment moving behind him, the way his cock stretched Jim so relentlessly, the way the inside of his thighs was smeared with oil and come, making everything deliciously, filthily slick.

 

He thought he could do this, just enjoy this as Khan fucked him, waiting for the older man to come for the second time.

 

When Khan shifted his hand from Jim’s hip onto his soft, way over sensitive cock and gathered it all into the palm of his hand: the soft penis and the spent balls, squeezing in time with the thrusts he howled his protest.

 

“No. Don’t. Too much now.” He scrambled at the hand holding his genitals and providing unwelcome attention. “Too sensitive, I won’t get hard.” He tried desperately to pull Khan’s hand away but it turned out to be a futile effort. The older man didn’t even notice the scratches to his hand but kept slowly squeezing and stroking Jim.

 

“You will.” Khan assured him, feeling the human slowly harden.

 

“Son of a bitch.” Jim managed to pant out before the dark haired warrior brought him to another orgasm. It was an almost painful overstimulation, his cock producing a pitiful amount of come and his whole body seizing. He must have passed out for a moment because when he came around again he was lying on his front, his legs splayed and the mess between thighs much bigger than before.

 

“You are such a bastard, I should have known.” Complained Jim, so exhausted he only wanted to sleep. His ass hurt, his legs hurt, hell everything was sore in one way or the other. It was probably the most mind blowing sex of his life but there had been definitely too much of it in a row.

 

“You did know. You should simply admit that you like it this way.” Khan chuckled somewhere behind him in that velvety purr of his that caused goosebumps to appear all over Jim’s naked body.

 

“There is such a thing as too much of something, you know.” Jim muttered with his eyes still closed, hoping for a brief respite.

 

He felt Khan’s fingers tracing patterns on the inside on his thighs, trailing through the mess leaking out of him.

 

“No way.” He protested turning over, aiming to hit Khan with his good knee but the Augment just caught the appendage and bit, not gently, at the muscle of Jim’s thigh. It send a sharp shiver down Jim’s back.

 

“You are so open, so wet now. It would barely take any effort at all to get inside you now.” Khan murmured, pressing two fingers into Jim’s sore hole and finding his prostate immediately. Jim made a short, almost barking sound of surprise. The press of Khan’s fingers sent sharp, almost painful but still exquisite pangs though his body.

 

“Stop, I can’t any more.” Jim all but begged, his whole body a mess.

 

Khan made an odd, desperate, almost angry sound.

 

“Don’t joke with me. How old are you? Of course you can. I will make you if I have to.”

 

And he did. He fingered Jim for what felt like an eternity. When he didn’t get hard enough for Khan’s liking the augment settled himself between Jim’s tired legs and took his half hard cock into his mouth. He massaged the abused prostate and licked and sucked at him for so long the Captain had to get hard eventually. The blond was almost sobbing by the time Khan crawled up over his body again.

 

The pain of another penetration was almost a relief at that point, his whole body so confused it mixed pleasure and pain into one inescapable sensation. It felt like it took hours of Khan slowly fucking him, of Jim clinging to him in an exhausted wreck before the blond came again. After that he could only pant and cling to Khan as he waited for the Augment to finally finish, his body so exhausted it wasn’t putting up any resistance any more, accepting Khan’s thrusts as if it was made for it.

 

After the last orgasm, more painful than pleasurable, Jim was so exhausted it almost hurt.

 

“Go away and die.” He muttered, weakly pushing Khan away.

 

The augment pulled him into an embrace, despite the blonds ineffectual struggling. He had the gall to chuckle even.

 

“Always so unafraid.” He muttered into Jim’s neck.

 

“ _Die_.” Jim repeated, not having energy for longer sentences. “Bastard. _Die_.” He repeated again, just to make his feelings clear before finally falling asleep.


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I do realise the chapter is not as glamorous as the other ones but I have really a lot of work and some crazy stuff in real life happening now and I really, really didn't want to drop this fic. The last chpater should be fairly quick in comming.
> 
> At least this one is long:)

“Mr. Spock.”

 

The Vulcan stopped and turned at the soft call. He was on the way to another budget meeting regarding the reconstruction of the Enterprise as recently there seemed to be a flurry of meetings and sudden need for the Captain to submit huge amounts of cost reports. Since Jim was called out with Khan for the evaluation, Spock as the acting Captain had to do it all himself. The skeleton crew on the renovated shop meant that he couldn’t even efficiently delegate duties.

 

“Yes Mr. Turin?” He asked the huge Augment.

 

“Have there been any news from Khan or the Captain?”

 

Spock fought the urge to sigh. It seemed like one of the Augments was asking him the same question every few hours.

 

“No there has not been. As I have said previously, in the last communication the Captain said he probably wouldn’t be able to send regular updates. He is due back in four days, there’s nothing to worry about.”

 

The blond tilted his head, still smiling that effortlessly pleasant smile.

 

“It has been more than two weeks since the last personal communication. Aren’t you worried something might have happened?”

 

“Not at all.” Spock answered at once. “I checked the origin of the orders myself and everything was in order. The evaluation is absolutely legal if a little unconventional, however the whole situation with Mr. Singh is more than a little unconventional.”

 

“And doesn’t it make you wonder why they send them so far away from Earth?” Turin pressed.

 

“Not at all. Khan caused great casualties on Earth, it seemed obvious our superiors want to keep the fact of his freedom from the general public. Now excuse me but I really do need to hurry.”

 

Turin watched the Vulcan walk away and the smile slipped from his face, leaving a heavy, thoughtful frown.

 

The blond turned around finally and walked down the corridor, finding Katya waiting for him at the next turn.

 

“And?” She inquired instantly.

 

Turin shook his head.

 

“He is either lying or too blind to see what is going on. The Vulcan says there was no communication from the Boss and that everything is in order.”

 

The redhead rubbed her neck.

 

“You felt it too, right?” she asked finally. “It wasn’t my imagination. Something happened.”

 

Turin nodded absently.

 

“Yeah. The connection is stretched to the limit, but something did happened. I have no idea if the Vulcan truly is so trusting in his Starfleet that he doesn’t see that this sudden flurry of activity is just a way to hide the fact that something is wrong.”

 

“So what now?”

 

Turin looked around them for cameras and finding none pointed directly at them leaned closer to Katya.

 

“We will have to check if Mr. Spock is hiding something from us. Find me a safe spot, out of sight of the security cameras, somewhere on the walkway he’s most probable to use. In the meantime I will try to get us some more info.”

 

*             *             *

 

Even though he was the one without the enhanced stamina and strength, it was Jim who woke up first. He felt both exhausted and sated, faintly shocked and a lot like he was mauled by some kind of wild animal.

 

He hurt.

 

Really hurt. His whole body was sore and he felt weak like a week old kitten. Also his leg was hurting like nothing before. It pulsed with hot, burning pain. Jim sat up, hissing at the soreness in his ass and rubbed his knee, keeping well above the end of the appendage.

 

Cursing his sore muscles he twisted to look at Khan.

 

The other man’s hair was a mess, sticking up everywhere, falling over his forehead and making him look surprisingly gentle. In sleep Khan’s face looked younger, relaxed, unguarded for once.

 

He looked like a stranger.

 

Cataloguing his myriad of aches, Jim managed to wriggle out of the surprisingly comfortable cuddle and scramble to his feet. He was glad for the emergency branches slash crutches he had left in the cave because his legs trembled like a newborn colts and ass hurt. Damn but Khan made good on his promise.

 

He had completely wrecked Jim,  fucking him over and over again for what felt like hours, well beyond what Jim thought was possible.

 

As he half stumbled half staggered towards the pale light of dawn at the entrance of the cave, Jim realized he was a lot cleaner than he was when he had finally passed out. Khan must have cleaned him after Jim checked out. It was strange to think of Khan as gentle but under that fierce and savage exterior he was surprisingly careful.

 

The moment the sunlight hit his eyes and he looked over the landscape of greenery Jim could his heart skipping a beat.

 

 _Oh_.

 

After reliving his aching bladder Jim found a rock to sit on, luxuriating in the early morning sun while it was still warm instead of scorching and looked at the world around him with new eyes.

 

Unlike the day before he saw things now, he saw degrees of shadow in the far off jungle, he saw all the places where any kind of movement was happening, he could feel, almost taste all the living things around him, he could guess where the local predators were by just the feel of potential threat that they gave off. He was suddenly so much more aware of the world around him, so much more attuned to his instincts it was intoxicating.

 

Khan was a burning hot presence just a few meters behind him, calm and asleep now but not for long probably. It was heady and strong, this sense of someone else tied so close to his own being, this awareness felt like nothing else in his life before, not even like the mind meld the old Spock shared with him.

 

This was deeper, tied down to his very core, this soul-deep knowledge that he was not alone.

 

He wondered if it felt like that for Khan with all of his crew, thought about how it must have felt to have it all cut off, gone in an instant.

 

It was a wonder Khan didn’t burn the whole world down.

 

He focused on this new awareness more and quickly realized there were things missing, things that should be there but he couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t reach them.

 

He was so deep inside his mind, so focused on separating all the new sensations that he was actually surprised when he realized he wasn’t alone anymore.

 

“Katya and Turin.” The velvet purr shivered down Jim’s back, answering the unrealized question. “You sense their end of the bond, but they are too far away to get anything but the fact that they are both alive.”

 

Jim turned to look.

 

Beside him stood Khan, already dressed, his hair pushed back from his face, watching him with those pale eyes of his.

 

“Why” Jim croaked. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Why didn’t I feel it before?”

 

Khan looked at him for a long moment before he sighed and moved to sit beside Jim. Their shoulders touched and the Augment looked over the brilliantly green jungle, away from Jim.

 

“Because I kept it away from you.”

 

Jim stared at his, well lover’she assumed, profile.

 

“But now you don’t.” The blond ventured quietly, unsure of how to treat Khan now that they spend the night together. This was not some short lived flirt in a bar, during leave. This was not something that could happen and be swept under the carpet. For better or worse he had made his choice the night before.

 

Khan still wasn’t looking at him, his gaze still directed into the space in front of him.

 

“Now I don’t.”

 

Jim wanted to say something but the spike of pain in his leg made him grunt and pant for breath for a long moment. Jim figured he must have aggravated it during the sex marathon and was now paying the price.

 

“What is it?” Khan asked, scanning him carefully with his eyes for any kind of injury. Jim figured that with their difference in strength he was probably going to end up with more than one unintentional injury.

 

“It’s nothing. My leg hurts like a bitch today. I must have aggravated it yesterday.”

 

Khan furrowed his brows.

 

“Can I look?”

 

It was not an easy question for Jim. Ever since he realized he’d lost his foot at his ankle, that there was just bits of mangled flesh hanging off his tibia, he wasn’t all that hot about seeing it. Each time Khan had to change the wrapping, he looked away.

 

Early on they realized that the synthetic material they used to wrap his leg weren’t helping the healing process. By trial and error they managed to find a way to soothe the inflamed wound a bit,by packing the stump with the edible leaves of a plan that grew near the lake. The leaves were very thick and meaty, held almost no juice and seemed to lessen the inflammation so they kept at it.

 

“Yeah.”

 

The blond turned his head away when Khan knelt beside his leg and started to quickly and efficiently unwrap it.

 

Jim never once looked at what was left of his leg, preferring to ignore the permanent injury as much as possible.

 

“Finally.” Khan sounded pleased.

 

“What?” Jim asked, stunned by the tone of voice.

 

Khan didn’t look up from his inspection.

 

“I told you contact and intent were needed for me to affect my blood. Your body is not naturally inclined to just regrow parts of your body and my cells don’t live forever. My cells might regenerate whatever is needed while they are active inside your body but the truth is, eventually they will die. I tried to force my blood to reprogram your own DNA, to write the regenerative ability into your body. I wasn’t having much luck. But this... I think it worked now. There’s at least and inch and a half of a completely new bone and what looks like the start of a ligament. If I had to speculate, I would say you are trying for a new ankle. Congratulations.” Khan started to wrap the leg again. “That’s probably the reason it hurts so much.”

 

Jim nodded but said nothing. He wasn’t going to celebrate before he was absolutely sure it worked. An inch and a half, it could be a new bone. Or it could be that his torn muscles retreated, exposing a part of the bone.

 

He really wished Bones was here.

 

*             *             *

 

                Jim found that after having wild, unrestrained sex with Khan, watching the man fish was even better than before. He didn’t bother with subtlety this time. He just ogled to his heart’s content. He found a good grassy patch, got himself a leaf big enough to serve as an umbrella and settled down to watch with his temporarily enhanced eyesight. The Augment informed Jim that all the drastic changes would fade within a day or two, him mind would filter out the bleed from the bond leaving only the sense of connection.

 

He let himself watch closely the way Khan’s muscles movement, the minute little shift in posture that caused delicious shades to skitter all over that already darkly tan skin. Leaning back into the shade, Jim licked his lips, letting himself follow the sharp indent of the tendons in the Augment’s neck down to the pretty collarbones and imagined licking them and then biting hard enough to leave a mark. He wondered what sounds Khan would make, the man was surprisingly unrestrained if quiet in bed. Jim licked his lips and swallowed, throat suddenly dry.

 

Damn, but it was ridiculous just how hot Khan made him.

 

He sprawled even lower on the patch of grass he’d claimed and continued to watch the dark haired man from beneath his lids. Khan’s bangs were still wet, falling onto his forehead and something in the way Khan tossed his head to push it back made Jim wonder if if he’d had longer hair before being turned into a popsicle.

 

He trailed his eyes lower, onto the perfect groove of his spine. The official Starfleet uniforms were always a source of great joy for Jim, being designed to cling to a persons every curve. The underwear was also a part of the uniform and shared it’s characteristics. No baggy boxers for the men serving in the Starfleet, no sir.

 

Now he watched the downright criminal curve of Khan’s ass, being wrapped in a small scrap of dark fabric that made him look even more obscene than if he was actually naked. Even from his spot, Jim could see the dimples above the dark haired man’s ass, the way his powerful thighs flexed with the minute changes of position, the way the calves were tensed and hard as stone . He couldn’t stop remembering how it felt to be manhandled so easily, the way he could slide his hands over the unbelievably smooth skin and feel the ridiculously powerful muscles shifting underneath.

 

He dragged one hand over his cock, giving himself a squeeze, not surprised at finding himself half hard already. He might have been sore as hell but damn, but he wanted it.

 

Khan threw the spear into the water suddenly, the large splash a violent burst of motion in the otherwise still picture. In one smooth, economic jump he was in the water and swimming with powerful strokes towards the shore.

 

Jim shifted the leaf over his head to provide better shade, much like a beach umbrella would, and continued to watch Khan’s quick, sure, graceful movements. In just a few moments Khan was at the shore. His wet hair fell onto his forehead and eyes but he didn’t bother with pushing them back. He just pulled himself up from the water and strode with quick, angry strides towards Jim.

 

The blond kept tilting his head to keep Khan in his sight as the dark-haired man approached, his chest heaving definitely not from the exertion, and his eyes burning. He stopped just inches from Jim, so close the blond could almost feel the cold of the other man’s skin. Khan’s nostrils were flared and he looked at Jim like he wanted to tear him apart.

 

Jim licked his hips and crossed his eyes with the stormy grey ones.

 

“Got you.” He said with a slow grin.

 

Making a sound suspiciously like a growl Khan ripped the handy leaf from Jim’s hand and threw it away, exposing the blond to the glare of the sun before lowering himself to his knees in one stunningly smooth movement.

 

Even as Jim was being pushed flat on the grass he was sitting on, he laughed at his little victory.

 

“You drive me insane.” Complained the Augment even as he was tearing at Jim’s clothes.

 

The blond ran his hands down Khan’s back, the skin wet and unbelievably cold from the lake.

 

“But it’s more interesting this way, isn’t it?”

  
Khan’s skin was so cold it send shivers down Jim’s back as the other man bent over him to pull Jim’s pants off. The blond ran his hands over the dark haired man’s sides, enjoying the slide of cold, wet skin under his palms and feeling the shift of powerful muscles as Khan set himself over him.

 

They were both more than half hard already.

 

“The way you keep provoking me.” Khan said in that incredibly purring voice of his. “You are playing with fire.”

 

Jim grinned sliding his hands under the wet material of Khan’s underwear and looking straight into the pale, burning eyes as he grabbed two handfuls of that truly glorious ass.

 

“Oh, but you like it, don’t you?”

 

Khan snorted at the taunt but bent down to kiss Jim all the same. He was good at this too, strong and possessive, licking deep into Jim’s mouth and making it clear he was going to fuck Jim in a moment and Jim was going to love it.

 

It was ridiculous really, how easy the sex between them was.

 

Jim watched with hooded eyes as Khan rose again to strip the underwear. His cock was already mostly full, dark and flushed, curving up towards his belly. A truly beautiful example if Jim said so himself. Before Khan managed to fold himself down, Jim sat up and took hold of Khan’s hip pulling him closer. As soon as the other man stepped into range he grabbed that magnificent dick with his free hand and sucked the head in, using as much tongue as possible. It was hilarious how Khan almost flailed before settling one hand on the back of Jim’s neck, cupping the curve of his skull, thumb brushing over the short hair there.

 

He made a long, loud exhale and Jim grinned around his mouthful, enjoying that he already had Khan struggling for control and went to work again. He enjoyed the heavy presence of Khan on his tongue, the musky scent of him and all the tiny reactions he wrangled from the man. Drooling a little he jerked Khan off with the hand wrapped around the shaft and did his best on the fully swollen head. Eventually he could feel the tension in the other man building enough that his control slipped and he started thrusting shallowly into Jim’s mouth. With a wet sound Jim pulled off, not willing to risk taking the hard cock any deeper. While he could give an amazing blowjob he never could deepthroat and had no wish to try.

 

He looked up at Khan, seeing his with a slight flush on his cheeks and his lips parted and swollen a bit. He looked unbelievably sexy.

 

This time Jim let himself get pushed down and opened up for the heavy weight of the Augment. Khan covered him almost from head to toe and kissed him with a ferocity he was so proud of, licking and biting at Jim’s lips until they were tender and swollen and Jim was whimpering low in his throat as the other man rubbed his thigh over Jim’s cock.

 

“I want to fuck you.” Khan murmured roughly as he kept trailing biting kisses all over Jim’s neck, probably making him look even more mauled than before.

 

“Fuck.” Jim swore, shuddering. Yeah he really, really wanted to but damn, his ass was in no condition for taking cock again in the nearest future. “No. My ass really can’t take it anymore.”

 

Khan huffed in his ear and raised himself up on his arms on either side of Jim’s head, giving the blond a perfect view of straining biceps and pectorals shifting with the move. The view was so inspiring Jim wrapped his arms around that powerful chest, pulled himself up and bit down on that truly maddening chest.

 

Khan cursed in a language Jim didn’t know and then flipped the blond over like he was a toy. As soon as he had the younger man lying flat on his stomach he lowered himself down, pinning Jim down. The blond shuddered with the feel of all that powerful muscle and still slightly cold skin stretched all along his back and the hard, now wet from his efforts cock settling in nicely between his cheeks. Khan moved a bit, sliding his cock over the sensitive skin a few times up and down, the head catching on the way too sore hole, making Jim all but mewl.

 

“Khan.” He warned but the man only took his hips into the unbreakable grip of his hands and lifted Jim’s ass a bit.

 

“Like this.” Khan rumbled, running his teeth on the back of Jim’s neck.

 

Before Jim had the time to ask, the other man set both his thighs outside Jim’s and shifted so that on the next roll of his hips, his cock slid over Jim’s crack, between his thighs and nudged Jim’s balls.

 

 _Oh_.

 

Jim tightened his thighs, giving Khan a snug place to thrust into and moaned like a whore at the feeling of that heavy, hard cock sliding between his legs, over his balls and cock, making everything wet and hot, and Jim was coming the moment Khan wrapped his hand around Jim to jerk him off.

 

It didn’t take Khan long to spill himself all over Jim, messing him up beyond reason.

 

Afterwards Khan rolled off Jim to lay beside him and just pant for breath. Again, Jim thought that this whole sex thing was way too easy between them and criminally good.

 

In just a few minutes what was a nice warmth from the sun was already feeling like somebody was running an iron over his skin, even with the cool breeze coming in from the lake.

 

“Ow.” He complained, way too relaxed to move. “I’m burning here.”

 

Khan sighed long-sufferingly and rolled back onto Jim, shielding him from the worst of the sun.

 

“Thanks” Jim said, already at the edge of sleep. “You are so chivalrous.” He mocked even as his eyes were steadily sliding shut.

 

“Shut up.” Khan muttered, obviously settling in for a short nap himself.

 

*             *             *

 

“Mr Spock.”

 

Spock raised his head from the data pad he was reading, coming back from yet another senseless meeting where he was arguing some obscure point of the repair costs for an unbelievably long time.

 

This time he did sigh, seeing Mr. Turin again. Really, the augments behaved like children asking for their parent every five minutes.

 

“Mr. Turin.” Greeted the Vulcan. “I have no new information about Khan for you, I am sorry.” He said right off the bat, too tired to waste time on this encounter.

 

“I think I will check it for myself if you don’t mind.”

 

There was something different in Turin’s posture that caught Spock’s attention. The big man was stretched tall, not trying to conceal his massive build with the artful slump he preferred. Instinct honed by many years of hand to hand combat classes made Spock lower the data pad and turn to face the perceived threat head on.

 

“I do not understand.”

 

Turin grinned at him, but it was a smile full of teeth.

 

“Oh I don’t believe it. All that intellect and you are trying to tell me you really don’t see what’s going on?”

 

Again by instinct, Spock spread his legs a bit and lowered himself into basic defense position.

 

Turin’s blue eyes flickered over the Vulcan and he smiled even more widely.

 

“Oh, arrogant.” He said appraising Spock. “to think you even stand a chance of defending against me.”

 

“There is no need for violence.” Spock tried to reason. “I tell the truth, I truly have no information about Khan or the Captain and your attack on my person will destroy any chances of peaceful resolution to your situation.” He warned, baffled by the outright hostility.

 

Turin grinned at him again, something very cold and very mocking in his eyes.

 

“Yeah it probably would... if I let you remember anything.” Turin circled Spock slowly, forcing the Vulcan to turn to keep him in his sights. He knew that the moment he made a move towards his comm unit, the Augment would attack.

 

With that frankly disturbing announcement the blond burst into action. He was too fast, too strong to resist. Within moments he had them both on the floor, Spock twisted so that he was lying on his own arms, trapping them under his own body and Turin was straddling him. Spock assumed that his previous confrontation with Khan would prepare him for the level of sheer physical strength and speed the augments possessed.

 

He was wrong.

 

Turin was so strong, his own Vulcan physique didn’t even stand a chance, he was overpowered and immobilized without landing a single blow in retaliation. He also noticed that Turin made sure not to cause a single injury to Spock, therefore making it all the more probable that he did have a way of erasing memories.

 

“You are a touch telepath, aren’t you? Let’s see how good your defenses really are.”

 

In front of his eyes, the tattoos shifted and morphed, creating swiftly moving rivulets that were travelling rapidly down his arms.

 

“You are not an Augment.” Spock whispered, the realization sudden and bright in his mind.

 

Turin snorted.

 

“Why do you think Khan never let your doc do any tests on me? Anyway let’s see what you are hiding from me, shall we?” Turin murmured, pressing one hand flat to the side of Spock’s face.

 

Spock tried to steel himself for pain, for some kind of invasion, for a fight. Nothing like that happened though. The moment the black lines reached Turin’s palms, the Vulcan blacked out.

 

*             *             *

 

Spock shook his head, rubbing his eyes. He was tired after the marathon of never ending meetings. Standing in an empty walkway, the data pad still in his hand, he couldn’t remember when the headache started but it was reaching very uncomfortable levels. With a sigh he turned towards his quarters, hoping a short nap would take care of it.

 

 

*             *             *

 

“Well it looks like I own Mr. Spock an apology. He really doesn’t know anything and he definitely wasn’t hiding the truth from us.” Turin rubbed his right arm, where the shifting black patterns caused a slight tingling of the skin. It would take a few moments before they would settle into what looked like ordinary tattoos. “It’s his trust in the Federation and the Starfleet that blinds the man. It’s frustrating. All that brainpower and no ability to deal with emotions. so much wasted potential.”

 

“But Khan is alive.” Katya said, somewhat uncertainly. The bond was so stretched between them she couldn’t be sure if it wasn’t just wishful thinking.

 

“Yeah.” Turin confirmed, voice low and sure. “He is alive.”

 

Katya looked at Turin with hooded eyes for a long moment, thoughtful.

 

“What?” He asked shaking his hand to get rid of the tingles he still felt.

 

“I forget sometimes,” Katya whispered quietly. “just how much of a monster you are.”

 

Turin grinned at her, his eyes cold and hard, making him look so much older.

 

“I was created to kill you all off, wasn’t I?” He shot back, for a moment revealing the terrifyingly dangerous persona that lay underneath the friendly man everyone knew.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: this is turning into one long ass story. Sigh, almost finished.
> 
> soundtrack for this chapter (and really, all the smexy scenes)  
> Adam Lambert - For Your Entertainment (such, such a sexy song and I just discovered the hotness that is Adam:)  
> Adam Lambert - Sleepwalker  
> Florence and the Machine - Breath of Life  
> Halestorm - I miss the misery


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: Sorry for it taking so damn long! In my defence I had a big surgery in december. Feeling very good now, though.  
> I know it's choppy but I hope you will like it. Not that much left to write in this series. definitely nearing the end. Finally.

From the moment they materialized in the tiny corner of the small ship, designated as a beam up platform, Jim was uncomfortably aware of eyes on him.

 

It would have been funny if it wasn’t so fucking sad, the way everyone on the ship froze the moment he and Khan materialized from the beam up and the crew caught a proper sight of them.

 

Or rather of him, since he doubted Khan’s shaggy hair, facial hair and ragged shirt made quite as much impression as the fact that Jim was _missing an appendage_.

 

The small ship was remarkably well equipped, with a tiny sickbay that was crammed to bursting with equipment. Jim eyed it and manfully resisted the urge to ask how much of it was cannibalized straight from the Enterprise.

 

Since none of them was in a life threatening condition, Bones zeroed in on the Augment, probably hoping to get him out of the way and have more time with Jim.

 

Khan got scanned within the first five seconds of stepping foot in the sickbay and sent away for debriefing with the next five, his sole diagnosis was a light malnutrition. No scars, no long term effects. Nothing but the loss of 15% body mass, mostly what little fat he had squirrelled away in his body and some muscle mass.

 

Jim was another story completely.

 

*        *        *

 

 

 “Bones?” Jim called, watching his friends face, as he stared at the medical screens with a grim look on his face. “It’s okay Bones.” Jim said gently, trying to ease the unspoken pressure between them.

 

Suddenly Bones turned to him, flinging the pad in his hand away with enough force for it to shatter on the opposing wall.

 

“No it’s not okay!” the Doctor roared. “You lost your whole foot! Seven weeks ago! It’s been so long, I can do nothing to help! Your hormone levels are completely insane, your brain activity is like nothing I have ever seen and you look like a fucking caveman! So no, it’s not okay that you got crippled because I didn’t think to search for you sooner!”

 

He stopped, eyes wide and panting as if he had just finished a marathon.

 

Jim just stared at him, feeling the same kind of numbness that seemed to shadow him ever since the crash.

 

“You really don’t need to point out I’m a cripple now Bones, I’m kind of aware of it myself, you know?” He said, the sarcasm so dry it burned his tongue. “Besides Khan thinks he can fix it.”

 

“Khan?! He might be a superman but he is not a doctor!” Bones hissed, his face red from his agitation.

 

“Yes.” Jim nodded. “But he’s been giving me blood transfusions for the last seven weeks and there already is a difference.”

 

Bones sat down heavily on the single chair in the room and rubbed both hands over his face.

 

“Blood transfusions. Without proper equipment, proper oversight, disinfectant... I just... I don’t know where to start telling what is wrong with that whole idea.”

 

The blond scooted down the bed he was sitting on so that he could touch his friends shoulder.

 

“Considering that seven weeks ago I was clinically dead, didn’t even have an ankle on this leg, yeah, I kind of think he can fix it. Maybe….Hopefully I don’t develop immunity or allergy ~~or anything~~ that would make the process started by his blood, stop.” He patted Bone’s shoulder awkwardly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

 

“How… how did the injury happen?” The doctor asked, his voice not as cool as he wanted it to be.

 

Jim sighed.

 

“During the emergency atmospheric entry, the ship was torn into two parts. Khan fell with the cargo section, while I was stuck in the pilot chair. Most of the cockpit fell into this very, very cold lake. Both my legs were stuck.” Jim took a very slow breath, trying to tell the story without really remembering it, pretending he couldn’t feel the burning cold of the water and the terror of fighting for breath for so damn long. “I drowned.”

 

There, he said it, and his voice didn’t even waver.

 

He was great, he was absolutely in control, dealing with the whole thing in a cool and mature way.

 

He was A-fucking-okay.

 

“The cold water slowed down my body’s functions so that when Khan found me there was still a chance to save. He managed to free one leg but the other...” He swallowed, his throat so damn dry. It was probably a reaction to recycled air after so long in a natural habitat. “He had to tear me free.”

 

“Jim, I’m…” Bones started to say something but Jim just shook his head and continued on, wanting to finish the whole grisly story in one go.

 

“I wasn’t reacting to any attempts of CPR, so for lack of options, Khan decided to pump me full of his blood on the spot. It worked. But I can tell you that it’s nothing, absolutely nothing like having a serum of his blood injected. For one, it hurts like a bitch. Second, the connection the serum caused in nothing compared to his actual blood. If you send my scans to Spock, he will confirm that I have developed a low level telepathic bond with Khan and if my suspicions are correct, also the rest of his crew.” Jim smiled wryly, rubbing at the scruff on his cheeks. “The bastard kind of forgot to mention he and his crew share something akin to a hive mind.”

 

The doctor closed his eyes, trying to come to terms with the multitude of information delivered to him in the rapid monologue. It was just too much and it wasn’t even the end yet.

 

“It explains a lot, actually.” Bones said thinking back to Khan’s reaction to Katya’s awakening. It also made it exceedingly unpleasant to think what it must have done to the whole community if they were aware when some of them were tortured and killed. “But Jim... you know I have to ask. Your scans indicate not only the older, severe injuries but also...” Bones cleared his throat, aware he was entering shaky grounds. “There is bruising and indication of, ehm, fairly rough... coupling… and I have to ask if it was consensual. In light of the telepathic bond and the kind of situation you were in, there is strong possibility…”

 

The blond groaned loudly and lowered his head, both his hands scrubbing at his flaming face.

 

“It was consensual Bones, really. Please don’t ever, ever ask me this again. Please.”

 

“I really can’t make that promise Jim. Considering the condition you are in, the situation indicates...” Bones talked, uncharacteristically avoiding looking Jim in the eye.

 

The blond stopped his fidgeting and when he cut in, his voice was a low rumble carrying a level of threat rarely heard from the young man.

 

“Stop. Stop now before you say too much Bones.” Jim warned. “It’s nice to know you think he wouldn’t touch me now that I’m a cripple, hmm?”

 

He jumped down from the biobed and barely even wobbled as he reached for the brand new cane.

 

“Wait Jim, I didn’t mean...” Bones tried to stop him. “look, I haven’t yet finished all the scans. Just sit down for the rest.” 

 

“I don’t care. I want a real shower, with soap. I want a shave and I want to eat something that I didn’t have to cook myself. Then I want a few hours of rest before we get to Enterprise and Spock starts to cross interrogate Khan and me for hours on end.” Jim took a deep breath, already at the exit from the infirmary, letting out the air slowly along with a lot of his anger and frustration. “Besides if I haven’t died during the last seven weeks I probably won’t drop dead now.” 

 

Bones opened his mouth but closed it without saying anything. After a moment he tried again, a gentle expression on his face.

 

“I’m sorry it took us so long to find you.”

 

Jim found it in himself to smile.

 

“I never doubted, not for one moment that you would come for me, you know? Not once.”

 

With that he hobbled away in search of the small communal showers, ships of this kind usually had. A shave, a haircut, new clothes and food was in order before he had to tell the story of his accident again, in excruciating detail for his Vulcan First Officer.

 

*        *        *

 

It felt both incredibly pleasurable and strange  to be taking a hot shower. In consideration of his and Khan’s circumstances, the officers on the ship had given up their water allotment to them so  that they could make themselves presentable.

 

Everything smelled too strong. The water smelled and tasted metallic, the soap and shampoo were too intense, the towels felt too soft. It was like those seven weeks had pushed his senses completely out of whack.

 

When he looked into the mirror, seeing his own face, the way he actually remember it, staring back at him, he wondered for the first time what was going to happen with him and Khan, whether there even was them anymore.

 

*        *        *

The next time he caught sight of the Augment was hours later, when they assembled in the small transport pod that would deliver them from the ship they used for the rescue mission onto the Enterprise itself, since the transport beam still wasn’t fixed.

 

Khan looked as perfectly put together as ever, his hair cut and slicked back, his black clothes and posture impeccable. He cast one single glance at Jim as they boarded the transport but didn’t try to communicate in any way or to reach out for any kind of physical contact. Kirk couldn’t tell if it was because of the people crammed into the small ship with them or because there was nothing to say.

 

As much as he was used to sensing Khan’s presence and his general emotions, for the last few hours he was also sensing the others distinctly, two separate entities on the other side of the bond he had with Khan.  Suddenly everything stopped. Half an hour before, all those sensations receded and became muted, barely even there. He still knew there was somebody on the other side of the bond, but couldn’t sense anything concrete.

 

He didn’t need to be genius to know it was Khan’s work.

 

Mostly, what irritated him the most was the fact that even knowing that, every time he looks at the Augment he can’t stop himself from remembering how he looked under that shirt, the way his pecs flexed when he raised himself above Jim, the way his face looked flushed with exertion, hair a mess and pupils blown so wide there was barely a sliver of grey left.

 

The man was so bad for him, yet Jim still wanted him so hard it burned.

 

 

*        *        *

 

Jim had expected to be mobbed by his friends the moment he stepped onto the landing dock and he wasn’t wrong. Still, even while hugging and greeting his friends, feeling so much joy it felt like it was going to explode right out of his chest, he couldn’t stop himself from observing Khan from the corner of his eye.

 

The second the Augmented man was out of the transporter, Katya was on him, her red hair like a flag as she nimbly slipped between the gaggle of officers and attached herself to her commander. He hugged her just as hard, closing his eyes and pressing his face into her neck. They spoke quietly, too quietly for anyone to hear and then turned to look at something. Jim followed their gaze and was surprised to see Turin standing alone at the entrance to the docking bay, both powerful arms crossed, muscles tense and standing in sharp relief against the white of his tee-shirt. There was something cold and dangerous about him, the friendly persona stripped from him somehow, watching Khan with dark, hooded eyes and a face as flat as a mask. The very lack of expression send shivers down Jim’s back and he didn’t quite know why.

 

The last thing he noticed before he was swept away by his friends was Khan starting to move towards Turin, Katya staying behind with an anxious expression on her face.

 

It turned out he wasn’t the only one noticing the change in Turin.

 

“Wow. Anybody notice the icy temperatures?” Remarked Bones, watching the blond Augment follow Khan down another corridor, disappearing from sight.

 

Spock furrowed his brows.

 

“I believe the temperature control is part of the life support system and is kept consistent throughout the ship…”

 

Bones said nothing, just sighed and covered his face with his hand.

 

The Vulcan stopped speaking, glanced at Bones, then at Jim and back the way Turin went.

 

“Ah. You mean Mr. Turin’s attitude?”

 

“Yeah” Drawled Jim. “if looks could kill I would be so dead right now.”

 

*        *        *

 

 

Turin sat on the bed, his shoulders against the smooth wall and eyes fixed on Khan, as the augment finished dressing for the day. He watched the dark handprints he left on Khan’s pale skin, the bruises that would only become darker before they finally healed. It would take days if not weeks. There were many of them, from his hands, from his teeth... Those were the marks that were not going to heal for days at the very least. For some reason if it was Ao who caused Khan or any other Augment injuries, they healed a lot slower than normal. Faster than a normal human but nowhere close to the normal regeneration level common to all Augments.

 

There was something dark and ugly, something he didn’t like about himself, that was pleased with the fact that he could mark, could hurt Khan in a way no one ever could.

 

“You actually miss the human.” He said eventually, making Khan freeze for just a moment.

 

The dark haired man had enough decency not to deny it outright.

 

“Unbelievable.” Ao continued softly, making Khan sigh and turn towards him with a worried look on his face.

 

“Ao, what is going on? First you freaked out Katya, then you manhandled me like a doll for half the night and now you act jealous of the Captain?” Khan raised his hands in a universal sign of bafflement. “I barely recognize you!”

 

„Me?!” The blond snapped. “Me?! You are the one that acts like a total stranger! Have you forgotten why we even are here? Why I agreed to change my whole life, my reason for existing for you?” The blond got up and started pacing, angry again.

 

Khan stopped dressing, stilling his body and watching the blond carefully. Turin knew why. It was always dangerous, very dangerous for Ao to get worked up. It took a lot of effort and a lot of suffering to retrain Turin’s instincts from aggression to sex. While ending up a little worse for war, Khan would survive a bout of rough sex with Turin. He would not survive a direct confrontation.

 

Sometimes it still threw Ao for a loop, that it was Anjali, of all people, that came up with this ridiculous idea that seemed to work quite well.

 

“Your... _relationship_... with that human is dangerous!” Ao almost spat the word relationship, like it was something dirty.

 

“It’s not a _relationship_. And it’s not a threat.” Khan assured him gently. “You know me and the way I plan things.”

 

The blond came closer to his leader and locked his eyes with the pale grey ones.

 

“Yes. But are you sure you have _planned_ this at all?”

 

With those words he turned and left the quarters, before the agitation and the smell of sex in the room goaded him into doing something he would regret later.

 

 

*        *        *

 

 

Hours later, laying in the dark in his quarters, staring at the ceiling, Jim tried very hard to ignore the things he was feeling, the images that he could imagine on the insides of his eyelids.

 

For as much as Khan was actually shielding Jim from sensing anything, the blond was fairly sure that what he was feeling was an echo of sex. He was pissed off, hurt, aroused and intrigued at the same time. He couldn’t stop thinking who was it that Khan was fucking with now? Was it Katya? Was it Turin? Was it both of them?

 

It was driving him insane, thinking of how and what and where and who. The images were like a kaleidoscope, rolling like an old fashioned movie tape in his head. He was unable to sleep, unable to ignore it, hallway to aroused but too disturbed to jerk off and relieve the tension. All he could do was lay there in the darkness and wonder. What got him down the most, was the fact that in the end he couldn’t stand the thought of breaking things off with Khan, and that angered him even more.

 

Still, when the next night Khan came to his quarters in the middle of the night, Jim let him in. He watched Khan strip, quick, efficient, unselfconscious of the bruises on his hips and arms, and didn’t ask who or how. He hadn’t ever seen a mark on Khan for longer than minutes, bruises usually didn’t even stay that long. He didn’t ask, just crawled on the bed, opening his arms for the dark haired man. He didn’t ask, didn’t talk at all, just pulled that powerful body over his own, ran his hands over the smooth skin of the Augment’s back and wished he could leave his own marks on that skin when he scorched that powerful back with his nails.

 

 

The end

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> music: Adam Lambert: Chokehold and Apocalyptica: I don't care


End file.
